A Post Office With Attitude

It's called "Delicious Rivers," it plays at La MaMa at 10 some nights and it features a three-piece band; you might expect something subversive, even naughty. It was written with a mathematician and applies mathematical principles: you might expect something abstract. And it's set in a post office. You might expect something, well, awful.

But the play "Delicious Rivers" is none of these things. It's straightforward with real, if quirky, characters and plot, and the music is almost extraneous (for all of the valiant efforts of Ellen Maddow, the playwright and composer, and Karinne Keithley, the choreographer, to make sure it's incorporated into the show). And while it is based on some mathematical principles that sound dangerously gimmicky, those principles are applied rather ingeniously in practice. There are also passages of strikingly good writing. The only problem is that the show is a little too long.

The mathematical element is the concept of Penrose tilings: sets of two regularly shaped tiles that in combination form patterns that are regular yet nonperiodic -- that is, asymmetrical. In the play, the "tiles" are either groups of words that re-emerge at different junctures, or plot points. Ms. Maddow will, for example, set up what appears to be a too-obvious plot device, only to veer away from its artificial symmetry at the last minute, playing with the idea of random coincidence that creates a simulacrum of order.

The play deals with the random encounters of three post-office customers, sometimes flipping its perspective to go behind the counter with the three postal workers, while three musicians weave in and out of the scenes, now as background, now as postal customers themselves. The postal workers were the strongest element: Cortez Nance Jr., Mary Shultz and Jay Smith all really look like people who could work in a post office, playing them as a growly man who scares the customers, a mousy middle-aged spinster and a friendly, too-talkative nerd. Ms. Maddow makes all of them interesting people by the end, particularly Ms. Shultz, who has a couple of fine monologues. It's not going to be to everyone's taste, but it's a respectable piece of work.

"Delicious Rivers" is at La MaMa Club Theater, 74 East Fourth Street, East Village, (212) 475-7710, through Feb. 5. Friday and Saturday at 10 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday at 5:30 p.m.